ng after its master. And if the terrier would 'beg,' then he would
win all hearts. I am not only referring to children, but to grown men
and women; and then there is always something peculiarly childlike and
frank in these children of the great river.

Only to-day, as I was walking up the bank of the river in the early
dawn, I heard some Burman boatmen discussing my fox-terrier. They were
about fifteen yards from the shore, poling their boat up against the
current, which is arduous work; and as I passed them my little dog ran
down the bank and looked at them across the water, and they saw her.

'See now,' said one man to another, pausing for a moment with his pole
in his hand--'see the little white dog with the brown face, how wise she
looks!'

'And how pretty!' said a man steering in the stern. 'Come!' he cried,
holding out his hand to it.

But the dog only made a splash in the water with her paws, and then
turned and ran after me. The boatmen laughed and resumed their poling,
and I passed on. In the still morning across the still water I could
hear every word, but I hardly took any note; I have heard it so often.
Only now when I come to write on this subject do I remember.

It has been inculcated in us from childhood that it is a manly thing to
be indifferent to pain--not to our own pain only, but to that of all
others. To be sorry for a hunted hare, to compassionate the wounded
deer, to shrink from torturing the brute creation, has been accounted by
us as namby-pamby sentimentalism, not fit for man, fit only for a
squeamish woman. To the Burman it is one of the highest of all virtues.
He believes that all that is beautiful in life is founded on compassion
and kindness and sympathy--that nothing of great value can exist without
them. Do you think that a Burmese boy would be allowed to birds'-nest,
or worry rats with a terrier, or go ferreting? Not so. These would be
crimes.

That this kindness and compassion for animals has very far-reaching
results no one can doubt. If you are kind to animals, you will be kind,
too, to your fellow-man. It is really the same thing, the same feeling
in both cases. If to be superior in position to an animal justifies you
in torturing it, so it would do with men. If you are in a better
position than another man, richer, stronger, higher in rank, that
would--that does often in our minds--justify ill-treatment and contempt.
Our innate feeling towards all that we consider inferior to